Jarhead" (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows Anthony Swoff, a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through Middle East deserts with no cover from intolerable heat or from Iraqi soldiers, always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fully fathom. - skip ad - Genres: Drama Running Time: 1 hr. 55 min. Release Date: November 4th, 2005 (wide) MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some violent images and strong sexual content. Distributor: Universal Pictures Distribution Cast And Credits Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, Chris Cooper Directed by: Sam Mendes Produced by: Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, Sam Mercer

Jarhead" follows the lead of Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War battlefield memoir in sticking with the grunts on the ground. It sticks with the sheer boredom of waiting for a war to happen, of the drinking, joking, lusting, swearing and quarreling of a bunch of adrenline-charged 20-year-olds, sitting around in the blazing, surreal Arabian desert, wondering, "Are we ever going to kill anyone?" It sticks with all that loneliness and tedium, interrupted by moments of sheer terror.

In adapting Swofford's book, writer William Broyles Jr. and director Sam Mendes confront but never entirely resolve a problem inherent in sticking to this viewpoint. The filmmakers clearly wanted to avoid the politics surrounding the first Gulf War even as they pay tribute to the Marines, the jarheads, who went to Saudi Arabia to fight. But the result is a movie rife with ambivalence.

Moments here and there might remind you of "Catch-22" or "Apocalypse Now" or "Full Metal Jacket," but "Jarhead" refuses to engage in its own point of view toward events it depicts. So the film feels empty and tentative, uncertain of what if anything these events add up to.

The movie is, of course, based on a best-seller and stars such bright young actors as Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx. But "Jarhead" will be a tough sell for Universal's marketing department. People can get their fill of Iraq and war on the nightly news. Plus, the film all too successfully captures the tedium and impatience of its characters to serve as out-and-out entertainment. The primary audience is male, but given these challenges, word-of-mouth might be lukewarm.

Gyllenhaal portrays Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who joins the Marines just in time to go to Saudi Arabia for the war. The movie never explains why he signed up. Indeed, the narrator/hero deliberately and literally closes the door on nearly every scene about his past except to hint that his was not a happy childhood.

During the harrowing rigors and hazing of basic training -- with strong echoes of "Full Metal Jacket" -- Staff Sgt. Sykes (Foxx), a lifer who loves his job, selects Swoff for his elite unit of scout/snipers. Again, the movie offers no reason why this happens other than possibly a gut reaction on Sykes' part. Sykes pairs Swoff with Troy (Sarsgaard), giving him a partner whose calm exterior belies the turmoil inside. Other soldiers in their unit include the intellectually challenged loudmouth Fowler (Evan Jones), extremely shy Fergus (Brian Geraghty), married man Cortez (Jacob Vargas) and stolid Cuban-American Escobar (Laz Alonso).

The movie's largest section takes place in the vast nothingness of the desert, where everyone digs in and waits ... and waits and waits. This waiting game turns into a mind-fuck. With no enemy to fight, conflicts turn inward. The Marines have a solution for everything, Swoff remarks, but none for losing your mind. Squabbles break out. Scorpion fights are staged. Guys rag on each other about what wives or girlfriends are doing back home. The banter and jokes revolve almost entirely around sex and violence.

Whenever Sykes has had his full of unit's crap, he designs malicious punishments for his charges, like forcing them to play football in 112-degree heat decked out in chemical suits and masks. Then, when the war does come, things get really crazy.

Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins create haunting images of the grunts' ordeal -- of oil fields burning and black rain falling at night, which reduces the color scheme to red and black; of Marines digging into the oily sand to make absurd foxholes; of Swoff wandering in a daze through a landscape of charred vehicles and incinerated Iraqis, his boots making white prints in blackened sand.

This is not a good war for a sniper. Not when an F-14 jet can light up an entire battalion. So even when the jarheads come under fire -- Swoff literally wets his pants and then move into enemy territory, there is little to do other than try to avoid the "friendly fire" from misguided air jockeys above. In such a hellish environment, doubts about their role and even the war itself consume everyone.

And here lies the crux of the matter. No longer willing to make an out-and-out anti-war film, as filmmakers did in the wake of Vietnam -- indeed the soldiers look at these films as incitements to combat -- Mendes' film admires its Marine heroes even as it notes their frustration and anger. This neutral viewpoint causes the movie to observe intense events in a dispassionate remove without really tackling the greater issues that the war raises, that of the brutality of modern warfare and the politics behind it.

The film does capture the machismo, crude humor and surreal nature of war. Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard's characters are smart and savvy customers who grow increasingly disillusioned with their mission. Foxx as their sergeant and Chris Cooper as a smooth-talking commander, who can sell troops on the vital meaning behind any mission, superbly illuminate the military's attitude toward modern war. All technical aspects to the production are terrific.